This Was A Stupid Plan
by Tony Stark's Hidden Side
Summary: Oneshot. Fury's view on the scene in The Avengers where Iron Man has to rely on Captain America to save him after he jumpstarts the Helicarrier's rotors, and what it might mean for the future of the team.


Fury seldom made mistakes, but this, this had been a mistake. He stared at the rapidly escalating situation in the lab as Captain America and Iron Man bickered over whether the latter even qualified as a hero. Bruce Banner was mere minutes away from having an "incident." Who knew what Thor was thinking about humans at that moment. Fury locked gazes with Natasha, neither of them having much luck defusing the situation.

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds." All right, this had gone too far. If something didn't change in the next few seconds, the team (time bomb) he had put together was going to explode before the danger was over.

A few more seconds, as they fought like dogs at each other's throats, and then the ship rocked with an explosion, and everything went straight to hell.

And strangely, with one of his best agents in mortal danger and the Hulk on the Helicarrier and another of his best having turned to the other side… Fury was relieved.

Fury was relieved because with an external threat thrown at them, the team had something to fight other than each other. Other than him. He wasn't convinced they could work _together,_ though. Would Agent Romanoff even escape the Hulk with her life, much less be able to work with him ever again? Would Stark and Rogers… no, that was too much to ask, for those two to ever be able to work together.

Actually, that was exactly what was necessary. If this team was going to work (the chances of that were a fool's bet, but Fury had always been willing to take risks), Stark and Rogers would need to get along _somehow._ Stark had never taken orders well, and there was no way Iron Man could be in command of the Avengers, so somehow the man was going to have to find a way to compromise, to accept that Rogers was more than just a military experiment.

Then the Helicarrier started falling out of the sky.

With one half of his brain, he was dealing with all the problems, like Loki and Barton and the Hulk. With the other half, though, he was desperately listening to the comm chatter, trying to catch a glimpse of anything that would convince him that this team had any chance in hell of stopping whatever Loki's master plan was.

"Stark, we're losing altitude," he barked, and he was acknowledged with the word " _noticed,"_ and then he caught sight of a video screen running footage of one of the stopped rotors, and _damn._ Was that Stark? Inside the Helicarrier's blades, _pushing_ them back to working order? _A jump start. That man is nothing if not inventive,_ he mused, but there remained the question of how the hell did the man plan to get out of there?

"Cap, hit the lever." Stark's voice was strained, and that's when it made sense to Fury. Somehow - maybe it hadn't happened over the comms - he had missed the moment Iron Man put his faith in another superhero.

Then came the shout of " _I need a minute here!"_ and Fury was just a breathless bystander, unable to do anything to affect the outcome of the situation except hope that the duo had it under control.

"Lever! _Now!_ " Stark's voice was more insistent and he was obviously nervous. Then, while gunshots still rang over the comm line and the Helicarrier stabilized, he heard Iron Man quietly mutter, "Uh-oh." Then there was the sound of metal on metal, and a shout. But somehow, a few minutes later, Stark still wasn't dead.

He found out later that Rogers had purposefully put himself in the line of fire of one of Loki's soldiers to pull the aforementioned lever. It had been a brilliant plan (except for the utter lack of room for error) and he was glad to hear it had been Stark's plan. The mere fact that he was willing to put his life in Captain America's hands showed there might be hope for this crazy team after all… if they could just stop leaping at each other's throats for a few seconds.

Of course, grief and a common enemy would do that pretty well. They just needed a push.

That gave him an idea, and he headed for Phil Coulson's locker.

 **A/N - The Avengers, in which Fury motivates his team by lying about the location of collectible trading cards...**


End file.
